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[Nirolak]

Welcome to the games journalism thread. This is a place to discuss the highs and lows of games journalism (EXCLUDING GAMERGATE) along with comparing and contrasting what makes games journalism good or bad in the first place.

Feel free to have debates about what the goals of games journalism should even be, along with articles you really like or think are examples of poor journalistic standards. In addition, feel free to discuss trends with the industry in general, even if you feel they're not innately good or bad and are just aspects of an evolving industry (such as the move from covering upcoming games to covering released games).

While we are focusing on games journalism both big and small, when posting bad games journalism, try avoid linking to a wordpress blog that's only read by the author and five of their friends. There's not much use in wasting time discussing something that no one is reading unless that content is actually good.

To be clear, this is not a thread to promote your own work or to be hostile/abusive to games journalists. Also, this is not a thread to discuss how much you hate that BloodBorne got a 7 out of 10 from a website. And once again, this is definitely not a thread to discuss anything GamerGate related. You have been warned.

Finally, let me list out some guidelines again to help make things clear:

1.) Feel free to make posts about both good and bad examples of games journalism, talk about what games journalism should be, and discuss trends in the games journalism industry in general.
2.) Do not self promote your own work.
3.) ABSOLUTELY NO GAMERGATE DISCUSSION.
4.) Try to avoid tiny blogs that you feel are posting bad content, as no one reads them, and it detracts from discussing the actual games journalism industry.
5.) Do not be hostile and/or abusive to games journalists. This is about criticizing work, not harassing the person.
6.) Think very long and hard before putting reviews in the thread. IGN's Football Manager review is an example of bad games journalism. A site giving BloodBorne a 6 out of 10 is not.

 

[Booshka]

http://shawnelliott.blogspot.com/2008/12/symposium-part-one-review-scores.html

http://shawnelliott.blogspot.com/2009/02/symposium-part-two-review-policy.html

Required reading for anyone really interested in games journalism, game reviews, critique, etc.

This is from years ago, but is still as relevant today as it was then.

 

[benny_a]

More Shawn Elliott. Not alone but co-written with Robert Ashley:

PR And The Game Media: How PR Shapes What You Think About Games

Edit: I'll use my number #3 spot to give a shout-out to Jason Schreier who I think is the best games journalist that is currently active.

 

[Visualante2]

Might be worth setting some bounds on gamer gate because I have no idea what constitutes gamer gate discussion. I've tried to avoid the subject pretty much.

 

[jschreier]

Awesome to see this thread come back -- it's nice to have someplace to read/discuss actual ethical issues in game journalism.

 

[nckillthegrimace]

The Good:

Gaffer Jason Schreier posted an article on Kotaku discussing Amazon licensing Crytek's CryEngine for a stupid amount of money. He did the legwork, using four different sources to verify details. He also added his own thoughts on what this deal means in the context of Amazon's high profile hiring of famous developers. Further, he reached out to Amazon and Crytek for comment. He did a great job with the article.

The Bad:

GameSpot read the article on Kotaku, copied the substance of the whole thing, and added nothing new to the story. No insight, no further details, not even a new request for comment, and existing details are even in the same order. Kotaku did all the work, but GameSpot reaps the benefit since there's now no point for a reader to check out the original article on Kotaku. Maybe not unethical, but supremely lazy and kind of rude. Poor form.

 

[Dsyndrome]

Biggest gripe I have (not sure if it's happening much lately) is reviewers that review a game they don't have an interest in, or play a story-heavy sequel to a game when they didn't play the predecessor, resulting in a skewed score.

Someone that plays COD exclusively shouldn't necessarily be reviewing Europa Universalis just because they've been assigned to review that by their boss. I know staffs can be undermanned or something, but have someone freelance a game if it's not your genre.

 

[bishoptl]

Might be worth setting some bounds on gamer gate because I have no idea what constitutes gamer gate discussion. I've tried to avoid the subject pretty much.

1. Perform a search on previous journalism and GG-related threads.
2. Carefully note the posts populated with grey names.
3. Don't do what they did.

 

[DocSeuss]

I'm really struggling to find great games criticism. I'm almost convinced it doesn't exist, except, perhaps, on YouTube. I do my best, but I'm just one dude. :\

Like, for example, the other day, I was linked to a Dead Space article after someone had read my Dead Space 3 piece from last fall. They were all "I think you'd like this based on what I read." Well, the article was a mess. Its core theme was that Dead Space was "grossly conservative," yet it failed at each and every term to actually prove its point of view.

One person who's routinely cited as 'one of the best voices in games criticism,' wrote a big thinkpiece on why the Xbox was bad. It amounted to "I don't watch movies in my living room, I watch them on my computer, so clearly the idea of the all-in-one media device is outdated," and "...yet this is a rich boy's black box for playing Call of Duty and Halo on -- and even that assumes fans of those franchises can and will continue to invest in the living room fantasy, will continue to invest in the same game mechanics, the same brands, the same ideas but with better graphics."

It's an utter nonsense statement, backed up by nothing. And this person is considered one of gaming's best writers by an awful lot of people. It's embarrassing.

Another critic, again considered amongst the best gaming has to offer, complained that The Witcher 2 was "too hard" to play--this on the revamped Xbox 360 version. So he complained about the game, despite not really having much to say because he hadn't gotten past the training section. He wrote another article praising the non-story of Dark Souls while damning Skyrim for using too many proper nouns, as if someone saying "the ragged flagon" or "Jarl of Windhelm" was the reason the story wasn't good. Instead of, y'know, breaking down why Skyrim's narrative failed, he resorted to nonsense complaints.

I wish gaming criticism had its Atlantic, New Yorker, or Cahiers du Cinema, and it doesn't. Instead it's got Buzzfeed.

These people all have way better writing chops than me, but all too often, it feels as if they don't... y'know, actually do any meaningful criticism. Too much games analysis is utter crap. When someone does dig at something, it's usually just about themes. "This game is important/not important because it's about Subject X or Y," as if merely presenting a topic was enough. Rare is it that I see pieces which have something meaningful to say on that subject.

When the 'best' games criticism I've been linked to recently is a half-baked review of Battlefield Hardline that'd get a failing grade in my lower-level film crit classes, it leaves me somewhat disheartened. Seriously, mentioning current events =/= good writing.

Long-form content? There's not enough, but it's there, and sites like Polygon and Kotaku are doing pretty great on that front. Polygon actually just published a piece on Looking Glass that's awesome; it might actually have supplanted the Arkane piece as my favorite thing Polygon's done. Unfortunately, long-form content is all too rare.

USGamer's got some amazing features going on, like that feature on isometric games from a little while ago.

 

[nckillthegrimace]

I'm really struggling to find great games criticism. I'm almost convinced it doesn't exist, except, perhaps, on YouTube. I do my best, but I'm just one dude. :\

You should link to all this stuff you're criticizing so other people know what you're talking about.

 

[DocSeuss]

You should link to all this stuff you're criticizing so other people know what you're talking about.

Last time I linked something to criticize, I was informed privately that I had made enemies by calling out specific people. I'd rather not sabotage what little space I've carved out for myself by making people feel bad, if I can help it?

If linking stuff is absolutely, completely mandatory, then I'll simply exit the thread instead.

EDIT: I will link positive stuff tho. Gimme a bit.

 

[benny_a]

Last time I linked something to criticize, I was informed privately that I had made enemies by calling out specific people. I'd rather not sabotage what little space I've carved out for myself by making people feel bad, if I can help it?

My perspective is that I think it needs to be linked.

Otherwise all we got is your perspective on things filtered using your words that unnamed popular critics are bad at criticism. I don't think that is useful.

 

[More_Badass]

Last time I linked something to criticize, I was informed privately that I had made enemies by calling out specific people. I'd rather not sabotage what little space I've carved out for myself by making people feel bad, if I can help it?

If linking stuff is absolutely, completely mandatory, then I'll simply exit the thread instead.

EDIT: I will link positive stuff tho. Gimme a bit.

Why even have a games journalism thread if people aren't going to link to the writers, sites, channels they're criticizing, either positively or negatively? Doesn't that just throw a wrench into the whole purpose of discussion before it even starts?

And great to finally see a journalism thread up and running again! I haven't really paid attention to the areas as much as I'd like but I'm definitely subbing here to learn more

 

[Nibel]

What about amateur YouTube channels that do a lot of excellent analysis of videogames? Does this count as well?

---

I really enjoy the work of Erik Kain from Forbes. I was quite surprised by the quality of his work since Forbes isn't exactly known for video games journalism; at least I never made that connection. For those who don't know, he does a lot of news, reviews and opinion pieces that are very often worth reading. He also writes on stuff outside of video games, like TV shows. The last of his works I enjoyed is his Bloodborne review.

The Good:

Gaffer Jason Schreier posted an article on Kotaku discussing Amazon licensing Crytek's CryEngine for a stupid amount of money. He did the legwork, using four different sources to verify details. He also added his own thoughts on what this deal means in the context of Amazon's high profile hiring of famous developers. Further, he reached out to Amazon and Crytek for comment. He did a great job with the article.

The Bad:

GameSpot read the article on Kotaku, copied the substance of the whole thing, and added nothing new to the story. No insight, no further details, not even a new request for comment, and existing details are even in the same order. Kotaku did all the work, but GameSpot reaps the benefit since there's now no point for a reader to check out the original article on Kotaku. Maybe not unethical, but supremely lazy and kind of rude. Poor form.

Yeah, saw that image on Twitter today and was shocked, really. I expected this kind of behaviour from low-profile websites that do not care about ethics, but not from freaking Gamespot.

Shout-outs to Jason; you probably know I appreciate your work by now and like specifcally your interviews and investigations. You, Stephen and Kirk make Kotaku a place worth reading.

 

[Azar]

I wish gaming criticism had its Atlantic, New Yorker, or Cahiers du Cinema, and it doesn't. Instead it's got Buzzfeed.

I desperately wish there was an audience to support that model. In my experience, there rarely is.

 

[KiraXD]

ive seen multiple sites create articles using Neogaf as the source... this is why i dont venture too far out of gaf...

 

[Aaron D.]

I'd just like to applaud the OP for not putting Games Journalism in quotes for the thread title.

Progress.

 

[Orayn]

Polygon posted a studio retrospective on Looking Glass, arguably one of the most important developers in the history of video games.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/6/8285529/looking-glass-history

Studio profiles are one of the few things I've consistently liked about Polygon's work and I wanted to make a thread about this, but I was kind of afraid people would just shit it up with "lol polygon" comments without even touching the article. A lot of games journalism is indeed quite bad, but I think the "GAMES JOURNALISM IS TERRIBLE" meme has grown strong enough that it's blatantly counter-productive in some circumstances.

 

[Phawx]

Why even have a games journalism thread if people aren't going to link to the writers, sites, channels they're criticizing, either positively or negatively? Doesn't that just throw a wrench into the whole purpose of discussion before it even starts?

And great to finally see a journalism thread up and running again! I haven't really paid attention to the areas as much as I'd like but I'm definitely subbing here to learn more

I think the problem is that DocSeuss sometimes writes for Kotaku and such and being critical of people who work for places that might potentially pay him for words isn't so much as burning bridges as it is throwing acid on bridges.

That's just my take.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Mike Joffe posted a detailed review of the global video game industry's relationship with conflict minerals acquired from the Democratic Republic of the Congo at citizens'/workers' expense. It ends with a disclaimer explaining the author's understanding of complicity, important to state because there's virtually no way (for consumers buying new generations of consoles and computer hardware) to avoid contributing, in one way or another, to geographic plundering of the country and businesses' lack of reciprocation. I wouldn't consider this a sterling example of investigative games journalism (references sources as opposed to providing unique primary observations), but otherwise it frames a global activity of commerce through how mining and production on a local scale is hidden from view and systematically ignored, so that a popular history of the games industry can avoid resolving a decades-long conflict. I highly recommend giving it a read: Joffe's a smart writer both in focusing on this subject and by using defining terms with examples.

Most importantly for me, it's much removed from news/PR supplied directly by the corporations targeted in this article, let alone buyer's-guide style reviews of games, both of which have formed the backbone of the print and online enthusiast press for decades.

 

[soultron]

I wish gaming criticism had its Atlantic, New Yorker, or Cahiers du Cinema, and it doesn't. Instead it's got Buzzfeed.

Have you read Kill Screen's content at all? Not all of their stuff is outright criticism, but KS collects some great commentary (example linked) on games (not necessarily always timely/current) and the writing quality is higher than what we're usually subjected to.

KS is definitely trying to be high brow video games writing, and for the most part, I feel the articles there often succeed.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

I rather enjoy the weekly article from Critical Distance on Gamasutra that has summaries and links to interesting articles. Here's the most recent one: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/2404...tick_Shift_to_Nintendos_lenticular_design.php

 

[More_Badass]

Personally my favorite site for in-depth game-related articles is Gamasutra and that's probably because the articles are aimed at developers and not the average person. A three-part piece on Environmental Storytelling. The Neuroscience of Survival Horror. You can't find articles like that anywhere else really

 

[LiegeWaffle]

Finally, a proper game journalism thread.

I try to concentrate on the good things in game journalism, and there's a lot of good stuff there. Especially if we broadly define "game journalism" as "writing about games", because why not, there's not that much difference between all of them.

There's a lot of bad stuff out there too (how would NeoGAF say interesting without a good scandal?), but I feel that promoting good game journalism is ultimately more useful for everyone than calling out the bad one.

I want to give kudos to a lot of amazing people out there who write about games. Jason Schreier and Patrick Klepek (both of Kotaku) are always a joy to see in my RSS feed. USgamer is amazing, as are all the people who write for it. Polygon features are still good; too bad they decided to no longer concentrate on them, they were the strongest part of their coverage.

I've still not finished my backlog of reading from this list, and Critical Distance continues to be a good way of finding interesting things to read.

Where do you get your good reads from? What are the good RSS and Twitter feeds and to subscribe to if I am tired of PR cycle hype and YouTube personalities?

 

[Gentleman Jack]

I rather enjoy the weekly article from Critical Distance on Gamasutra that has summaries and links to interesting articles. Here's the most recent one: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/2404...tick_Shift_to_Nintendos_lenticular_design.php

Critical Distance does great work.

 

[ShinMaruku]

I think the medium is not old enough to actually be taken seriously with it's media coverage.
Also humanity itself is too immature for much of anything to be taken seriously.

But that's just my view. I attribute it to being born in the third world.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

KS is definitely trying to be high brow video games writing, and for the most part, I feel the articles there often succeed.

They're decent. Writing quality varies with authors + subjects chosen. I appreciate how wide their scope reaches, even highlighting tangential fields like film criticism. The reviews are easy to skip, though, and that one contributor who loves to mention how much superior improv theater is to games seems flippant.

Game Studies and the Journal of Games Criticism are two academic wells I've been reading lately. Critique and journalism shouldn't be conflated, I think (and canonical criticism of games is a bit different too), but I'm not sure there's enough worthwhile content for another thread on GAF yet.

 

[More_Badass]

Have you read Kill Screen's content at all? Not all of their stuff is outright criticism, but KS collects some great commentary (example linked) on games (not necessarily always timely/current) and the writing quality is higher than what we're usually subjected to.

KS is definitely trying to be high brow video games writing, and for the most part, I feel the articles there often succeed.

Agreed, Kill Screen is a great site. One of the contributors there, Chris Priestman, was one of the editors for IndieStatik before that site shut down.

 

[PumpkinSpice]

Biggest gripe I have (not sure if it's happening much lately) is reviewers that review a game they don't have an interest in, or play a story-heavy sequel to a game when they didn't play the predecessor, resulting in a skewed score.

Someone that plays COD exclusively shouldn't necessarily be reviewing Europa Universalis just because they've been assigned to review that by their boss. I know staffs can be undermanned or something, but have someone freelance a game if it's not your genre.

Not that I'm concerned about scores or score skew but I actually hate it way more when the only reviews I can find are by someone who already loves a series or genre.

Usually I end up trying to find individual reviewers whose tastes are somewhat close to my own and try to follow what they are saying.

 

[DocSeuss]

My perspective is that I think it needs to be linked.

Otherwise all we got is your perspective on things filtered using your words that unnamed popular critics are bad at criticism. I don't think that is useful.

I understand that. I'd just rather not be told "you'll never have a job in games journalism if you keep this up" again.

I would absolutely love to be brutally honest about other peoples' games writing. But I'm also a guy who just spent a week fighting to get food stamps after being overdrawn in my bank account. I can't afford to jeopardize my already tenuous position.

So like I said, I'll refrain from saying more negative things and will simply focus on the positive stuff I feel comfortable linking.

Why even have a games journalism thread if people aren't going to link to the writers, sites, channels they're criticizing, either positively or negatively? Doesn't that just throw a wrench into the whole purpose of discussion before it even starts?

And great to finally see a journalism thread up and running again! I haven't really paid attention to the areas as much as I'd like but I'm definitely subbing here to learn more

Because it's a small industry, and openly criticizing someone far more influential than you can be a death sentence. I've talked to people who are in way better positions than me, and even they have some pretty big concerns about talking about certain people or practices.

I desperately wish there was an audience to support that model. In my experience, there rarely is.

Yeah. I don't see my role as a writer expanding much beyond what little work I've already been privileged enough to do. I mean, I want to hold on to the "if you build it, they will come" thing... but... yeah.

 

[FStop7]

Doritogate and the Rab Florence thing had to be the bottom of the barrel...

 

[More_Badass]

I understand that. I'd just rather not be told "you'll never have a job in games journalism if you keep this up" again.

I would absolutely love to be brutally honest about other peoples' games writing. But I'm also a guy who just spent a week fighting to get food stamps after being overdrawn in my bank account. I can't afford to jeopardize my already tenuous position.

So like I said, I'll refrain from saying more negative things and will simply focus on the positive stuff I feel comfortable linking.



Because it's a small industry, and openly criticizing someone far more influential than you can be a death sentence. I've talked to people who are in way better positions than me, and even they have some pretty big concerns about talking about certain people or practices.



Yeah. I don't see my role as a writer expanding much beyond what little work I've already been privileged enough to do. I mean, I want to hold on to the "if you build it, they will come" thing... but... yeah.

Wow, that's pretty messed up. So the games journalism industry is kind of like the movies industry in that sense? I mean, I write about games, as a hobby, so I don't really consider those aspects of dealing with publishers or large sites. Sorry to hear you got those kinds of messages.

 

[immortal-joe]

Every single article article defending Microsoft and/or attacking the readers and fans before and after Microsoft's Xbone reveal. What bothers me most of all is that this may not have been a new low point, but rather the full unveiling of the low point the industry has been at for a very long time.

Aside from that, I also cringe every time I see console warrior-like articles slip into a well known gaming website or publication.

 

[Ravensmash]

Not online only publications, but I still rate Edge magazine. Picked it up the other day and it's still genuinely well written.

 

[Yurikerr]

I agree that Gamasutra is my main source of game's articles. Their developer blogs and postmortems features are amazing for someone interested in the development area.

Not entering on GamerGate topic, but some of the things written by Jenn Frank and Leigh Alexander are really interesting. Maybe not in a critique way, but as personal experiences.

Like this MGS3 piece by Alexander: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/a-decade-of-snake-eating-a-celebration-of-metal-gear-solid-3-273

And Frank's prize winner piece: http://www.unwinnable.com/2013/04/05/that-dragon-cancer/#.VSQnWlVVhBd

 

[jschreier]

The Good:

Gaffer Jason Schreier posted an article on Kotaku discussing Amazon licensing Crytek's CryEngine for a stupid amount of money. He did the legwork, using four different sources to verify details. He also added his own thoughts on what this deal means in the context of Amazon's high profile hiring of famous developers. Further, he reached out to Amazon and Crytek for comment. He did a great job with the article.

The Bad:

GameSpot read the article on Kotaku, copied the substance of the whole thing, and added nothing new to the story. No insight, no further details, not even a new request for comment, and existing details are even in the same order. Kotaku did all the work, but GameSpot reaps the benefit since there's now no point for a reader to check out the original article on Kotaku. Maybe not unethical, but supremely lazy and kind of rude. Poor form.

I think there's a lot worth discussing when it comes to aggregation in games media, which is something that every outlet does, including Kotaku. There are ways to aggregate ethically, ways to aggregate unethically, and then there's a whole lot of grey area in between.

This was a particularly unusual case, though. The structure, the information, and even some of the wording in GameSpot's article is just about identical to what we published. Compare:

Kotaku: Last year, as the game company Crytek went through near-catastrophic financial struggles, they found help from an unlikely source: the tech giant Amazon.

GameSpot: Multiple sources have told Kotaku that, following Crysis developer Crytek's widespread financial challenges last year, the Germany-based company has formed a major alliance with an unexpected partner: Amazon.

Kotaku: It’s unclear what Amazon plans to do with CryEngine, a powerful set of tools that has been used in all of Crytek’s games (Crysis 3, Ryse) and licensed to a number of external developers for games like Turtle Rock’s Evolve and the upcoming Bethesda free-to-play game BattleCry.

GameSpot: There is no word as to what Amazon plans to do with CryEngine 3, a popular engine used of course for Crytek's own games as well as Evolve, State of Decay, and Star Citizen, among others.

Very unfortunate situation.

 

[BrendanSinclair]

Chris Franklin's Errant Signal is some of my favorite games criticism right now.

 

[TheXbox]

Question: Why do we necessarily conflate all aspects of games coverage with "journalism"? It seems to me that a lot of the ethical issues of games coverage are editorial, rather than journalistic. I worry we might be doing a disservice to actual journalists in the industry who aren't really involved with the critical or promotional aspects of games coverage. Are journalists and reviewers basically the same, or am I reading to much into this?

 

[Makonero]

I think there's a lot worth discussing when it comes to aggregation in games media, which is something that every outlet does, including Kotaku. There are ways to aggregate ethically, ways to aggregate unethically, and then there's a whole lot of grey area in between.

This was a particularly unusual case, though. The structure, the information, and even some of the wording in GameSpot's article is just about identical to what we published. Compare:

Kotaku: Last year, as the game company Crytek went through near-catastrophic financial struggles, they found help from an unlikely source: the tech giant Amazon.

GameSpot: Multiple sources have told Kotaku that, following Crysis developer Crytek's widespread financial challenges last year, the Germany-based company has formed a major alliance with an unexpected partner: Amazon.

Kotaku: It’s unclear what Amazon plans to do with CryEngine, a powerful set of tools that has been used in all of Crytek’s games (Crysis 3, Ryse) and licensed to a number of external developers for games like Turtle Rock’s Evolve and the upcoming Bethesda free-to-play game BattleCry.

GameSpot: There is no word as to what Amazon plans to do with CryEngine 3, a popular engine used of course for Crytek's own games as well as Evolve, State of Decay, and Star Citizen, among others.

Very unfortunate situation.

Yeah, that sentence structure is identical. Clearly a cut/paste/move words around job, which undermines the amount of work you did.

 

[MC Safety]

Question: Why do we necessarily conflate all aspects of games coverage with "journalism"? It seems to me that a lot of the ethical issues of games coverage are editorial, rather than journalistic. I worry we might be doing a disservice to actual journalists in the industry who aren't really involved with the critical or promotional aspects of games coverage. Are journalists and reviewers basically the same, or am I reading to much into this?

Journalism is a very big umbrella under which a lot of different roles fit comfortably.

 

[Shy]

I think Super bunnyhop is a good example of games journalism.

 

[Syriel]

As a fellow writer, I like the long form stuff that Jason does over at Kotaku. I wish more outlets could afford that sort of thing.

At the same time, I was pretty disappointed to see Patricia Hernandez post a "news" piece on DOA5 that consisted of little more than a mention that a DOA5 nude patch was available and screen grabs lifted from another site showing full frontal nudity.

The news about the patch is legitimate news, but Hernandez's choice to include the other site's unedited screen grabs comes across as a crass play for more hits. Especially given that the nude character renders take up more screen real estate than her actual text.

It would have been very easy for Hernandez to censor the images she used, while not impacting the content of the article in any way. Choosing to use the images as she did, when they have no news value in and of themselves, is exploitative..

Link to the article in question (NSFW):
http://kotaku.com/welp-dead-or-alive-5-on-pc-has-nudity-mods-1696066716

 

[Anno]

Question: Why do we necessarily conflate all aspects of games coverage with "journalism"? It seems to me that a lot of the ethical issues of games coverage are editorial, rather than journalistic. I worry we might be doing a disservice to actual journalists in the industry who aren't really involved with the critical or promotional aspects of games coverage. Are journalists and reviewers basically the same, or am I reading to much into this?

Criticism is perhaps a part of a wider umbrella of journalism, but it's also different in many ways. Sadly I don't feel like many people here keep that in mind when asking for "objective reviews" or outright damming unnamed sources.

 

[ArkkAngel007]

Question: Why do we necessarily conflate all aspects of games coverage with "journalism"? It seems to me that a lot of the ethical issues of games coverage are editorial, rather than journalistic. I worry we might be doing a disservice to actual journalists in the industry who aren't really involved with the critical or promotional aspects of games coverage. Are journalists and reviewers basically the same, or am I reading to much into this?

Such is the beast in media-based coverage. I think why we see such a gulf between editorial/commentary work and journalism is that this industry has a knack for playing things real tight to the chest for whatever reason, and that the relationships there between them and outlets is a bit more separated than what it is in say the film industry and those that cover them.

I'm sure Jason has touched on this in the past, so he likely already has some comments for this. Could be mistaken, so sorry if I'm putting him on the spot

 

[More_Badass]

Criticism is perhaps a part of a wider umbrella of journalism, but it's also different in many ways. Sadly I don't feel like many people here keep that in mind when asking for "objective reviews" or outright damming unnamed sources.

Yeah, I consider review and critiques as a subsection of journalism. They're not two distinct things. A review is a form of journalism, but a journalist doesn't have to be a reviewer.

 

[ShinMaruku]

Question: Why do we necessarily conflate all aspects of games coverage with "journalism"? It seems to me that a lot of the ethical issues of games coverage are editorial, rather than journalistic. I worry we might be doing a disservice to actual journalists in the industry who aren't really involved with the critical or promotional aspects of games coverage. Are journalists and reviewers basically the same, or am I reading to much into this?

People want simplicity and putting them all a journalism satisfies that delusion. The truth resists simplicity but people always seek it

run into issues. I too think if we separated things better we could have better expectations. Why the hell do people expect some New York Times level coverage from some underpaid person in the bay area living in a bubble is an mystery to me.

 

[andymcc]

jschreier must love this thread for the huge ego boost. lol

he deserves it tho!

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

I don't currently lump enthusiast reviews (buyer's-guide style; I treat 'em as previews given that people read them before getting a game) or canonical reviews (speaking of a game via one's genre/style preferences and previous opinions on games, the expectation being that readers are familiar with content) with review-format or investigative journalism. But I haven't read articles talking about the differences and/or similarities between them, and cursory Googling didn't help just a second ago.

Back to Kill Screen: this article on libraries asserting themselves as hangout spaces for adolescents by starting gaming clubs is a good read. It talks significantly about how, with less arcades and Internet cafes than before, libraries are having to pick up the slack as locally-/municipally-supported complexes of media where anyone can organize safety and group isolation.

 

[DocSeuss]

jschreier must love this thread for the huge ego boost. lol

he deserves it tho!

It's kind of hard not to compliment the best games journalist since Erik and Chet.

 

[Anno]

Rob Zacny's piece on Kaos Studios and the crazy story behind Homefront is a piece of more traditional journalism that I think the (games journalism) industry can be more proud of than most. Wish we had more articles like this, but the games industry plays everything so close to their vest.